‘The Boss of It All’: Sharp corporate comedy in Calgary’s newest theatre space

Have you met The Theatre yet? Calgary’s newest black box is back with The Boss of It All, the third show of its inaugural season.

Tucked under a residential tower on 101-215 14 Avenue, the space is still one of the city’s best-kept arts secrets.

It’s run by co‑artistic directors Abagail Vanmerlin and Jakob Schaefer, who have spent three years turning it into something they say Calgary has been missing.

Once a swimming pool, The Theatre, now a flexible black box seating anywhere from 40 to 80 people, held Scintilla by Alessandro Camon as its first show of the season, followed by The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey.

And now with the third, it could not be more different.

This time, in its Canadian debut, the cast is diving into The Boss of It All, a razor-sharp satire based on the Lars von Trier film.

It follows a company owner who does not want to be disliked. To protect himself, he hires an actor to pretend to be the boss, whom the staff believes runs the company. The actor has to play along, and that’s when things spiral.

The shape of the space can change the way actors play.

The audience sits close enough to catch subtleties often lost in a bigger venue, which plays right into the design of this script, as the characters never leave the office.

Actor Rylan Nilsson describes it like this: “It plays almost like a slow-burning farce … like that farce where you’re all sitting in the living room expecting someone to pull their pants down, right. It’s, in a sense, farcical in that sense.” The humour is dry, the characters relatable.

And for those who have toiled away in a cubicle, it will be particularly hilarious.

Alex Mayer, who plays the so-called boss, says his character becomes a stand-in for the structure of corporate culture itself.

“My character wants the fruits of the labour, but doesn’t want the responsibility of having to be a hard ass, having to delegate, having to take on any sort of responsibility,” he said.

Yeah, that doesn’t feel familiar at all.

The Boss of It All runs until Feb. 7, 2026, at The Theatre in the Beltline. Tickets can be found online.

Editor’s Note: The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey was listed as The Theatre’s first show, and has been corrected to state Scintilla by Alessandro Camon as The Theatre’s first show of the year, while The Drawer Boy is the second.